During assembly of a fuel delivery system of internal combustion engines having electronically controlled fuel injectors, it is customary to connect the fuel injectors to a fuel rail. Typically, a separate retaining clip retains and orients each fuel injector to the fuel rail. In a further assembly step, the fuel injectors are connected to the engine's control system. To overcome labor intensive assembly procedures, some prior art fuel delivery systems provide retention, orientation and electrical connection of the fuel injector in a single assembly step. To provide electrical power to fuel injectors, some systems utilize wires arranged in a wire guide attached to a standard fuel rail or an electrical bus molded into a plastic fuel rail.
The inventors of the present invention have recognized numerous disadvantages with these prior art systems. For example, prior art systems utilizing an electrical bus molded into the plastic fuel rail typically include a female connector which receives the male connector of the fuel injector. This presents significant molding issues because the two halves of the mold generally join at the location where the connectors are formed. Thus, the mold might crush the female connector, rendering the fuel rail useless. Systems utilizing a male connector in the fuel rail typically require a connector having a female portion at both ends to connect to the male connector on the fuel rail and the male connector on the fuel injector. These female connectors require that the two male connectors be collinear in a butting, non-overlapping relationship, which undesirably increases the overall length of the fuel rail/fuel injector electrical connector assembly.
Further, some prior art systems utilize a pressure regulator mounted to a plastic fuel rail to maintain the proper fuel pressure in the fuel rail. It is well known that a static charge may occur on the body of the pressure regulator. To drain off this static charge, prior art systems coat the plastic fuel rail with a metallic paint so that a ground path exists between the pressure regulator and the engine. A disadvantage of this approach is increased material and labor costs.